As you are no doubt aware, OS X Yosemite was released to the public on Friday. For free (paid upgrades? How old fashioned!). But for those people asking me whether they should upgrade immediately, I have two words of advice:

NOT YET!

Ok, so that’s the short answer, now for the slightly longer version with my reasoning.

Like a lot of computer users/geeks I fully understand the “need” to upgrade to the latest/greatest software as soon as it’s available. But the fact is, new software is almost always buggy. It doesn’t matter how well it’s written and tested, when it’s released to millions of users, there’ll always be a couple of software/hardware configurations that haven’t been accounted for and tested. Or bugs that just weren’t spotted for whatever reason. That said, Yosemite was subject to a fairly long, and large, public beta so I expect less issues than perhaps in previous releases of OS X.

So here’s my honest opinion on upgrading to any new OS. Let the others find the problems, let the developers fix them…..and then upgrade. This is the least painful way forward, even for someone using a computer at home. But for a photographer, graphic designer, videographer or writer whose main tool to do their work (other than the talent they were blessed with and the skills they have developed through hard work) is their computer……it’s professional russian roulette. You’ll probably be ok, but then again you might get the 1 in 6 bullet that not only stops you working right now, but leaves a trail of damage and creating a mountain of work to get back to where you were before the upgrade.

Of course there’s going to be some of you who still say ‘screw waiting’ and decide to go ahead anyway. In that case there’s a few things I strongly recommend you do to cover your rear.

  • Take a backup of your entire hard drive using Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper
  • Take a second backup of your entire hard drive using Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper
  • Make sure that you have at least one Time Machine backup drive completely up to date
  • Check the Roaring Apps Web site to make sure all of your ‘production’ applications work under Yosemite

 

Once you’ve done all this, and are satisfied that none of the apps you rely on to make you money will cease to work normally under Yosemite, then consider the upgrade, safe in the knowledge that should you suffer problems during or after the upgrade you will have at least three safe ways back to a working machine if the worst were to happen.

The chances are that you’ll never need to go backwards, and that you’ll cope with any issues that arise. But on the rare occasion that there is a show-stopping issue you’ll be extremely pleased that you took the time to carry out these precautions.

Or, you could just wait a little bit longer and see how everyone else gets on 🙂

You can always check my advice page on upgrading to Yosemite here. Or if you would like personal advice on upgrading, drop me an email.